Lisa M. Diamond
Reviewer: B.I. Laureano
I first heard of Lisa Diamond’s book when watching Oprah and a show on women who identified as heterosexual partnering with biological women later in life. I’ll admit that I rolled my eyes at Oprah’s attempt to discuss the topic on her show. I knew the topic would be far too complex for her one-hour show to do it justice. At that time Diamond, a professor at the University of Utah in psychology and gender studies, shared her theory that women’s sexual fluidity, the ability to be attracted to different people, has been the norm rather than the exception regarding women’s sexual desire and love.
Diamond provides a historical overview of what has occurred in sociological, psychological and sexology research with regards to sexual desire and how in general women have been excluded. I was not surprised to read that research on women’s sexual desires has been limited. Unsurprising was the fact that research on gay men has been the focus of many studies on sexual orientation. Diamond makes a strong argument of the one-sided and gender inequality in research and concludes that women’s sexual desires are more varied than men’s. Also of note was Diamond’s recognition that research that includes people who identify as “bisexual” is lacking.
The text is based upon Diamond’s longitudinal qualitative research of about 80 women who identified as either “bisexual,” “lesbian,” and others that chose no label but did identify as having attractions to various gender identities. Diamond calls these participants “unlabeled” or “sexual minorities.” By chapter four, Diamond includes testimonies from her sample and examines their attraction to genders and if their choices to label themselves have changed.
Chapter five focuses on Diamond’s efforts to demonstrate the extreme differences between “change” and “choice” when it comes to sexual orientation. She often reminds her reader to be cautious of confusing the two and falling into the belief that people can choose who they want to be attracted to and partner with. Chapter six examines the idea of being attracted to a person not their gender and the identity of “pansexual” and “transgender” is introduced.
One fascinating aspect of Diamond’s work was her recognition of how diverse and complicated attraction is for each of her participants. She concludes “‘Bisexual’ is an appropriate label for women with consistent nonexclusive attractions, but perhaps not for women who simply feel that they have a capacity for bisexuality” (p 131). Diamond concludes her work with an examination into how love fits into the fluidity of women’s sexual desire, and the politics of it all.
What’s missing is what is lost from several books that examine sexuality and desire: communities of color. Although Diamond’s own qualitative research included a small number of people of color, she does not go into detail as to how the respondents’ beliefs and values changed or remained the same. Add to that the fact that research on women’s sexual desires has historically had an exclusively white sample, and this text may try to alter that, yet falls short. If there was no difference in the sample based on racial and/or ethnic identities, why not say that? Finally, this book is very much for a specific audience as the writing is not as accessible as other formats, yet this was expected. Diamond has begun the work that centers the experiences of women in the interdisciplinary field of sexuality and gender and I look forward to how these conversations will move forward.
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